brand logo

Covid boosters for wealthy nations spark outrage

01 Aug 2021

  • Nations short of vaccine should get first doses to curb the pandemic, researchers say
By Amy Maxmen Israel has announced plans to begin giving booster shots to older adults next week, in the hope of increasing their protection against Covid-19 – and a number of other wealthy countries are considering the same. But global-health researchers warn that this strategy could set back efforts to end the pandemic. Each booster, they say, represents a vaccine dose that could instead go to low and middle-income countries, where most citizens have no protection at all, and where dangerous coronavirus variants could emerge as cases surge. Data does not yet show that extra doses are needed to save lives, researchers say, except perhaps for people with compromised immune systems, who might fail to generate much of an antibody response to the initial Covid-19 shots. An internal analysis from the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that if the 11 rich countries that are either rolling out boosters or considering it this year were to give the shots to everyone over 50 years old, they would use up roughly 440 million doses of the global supply. If all high-income and upper-middle-income nations were to do the same, the estimate doubles. The WHO maintains that these shots would be more useful for curbing the pandemic if they were sent to low and lower-middle-income countries, where more than 85% of people – some 3.5 billion – haven’t had a single jab. “The priority now must be to vaccinate those who have received no doses,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a briefing on 12 July. All of the Covid-19 vaccines authorised by most high-income countries reduce a person’s risk of hospitalisation and death by more than 90%. Scientists don’t yet know how much more a booster – typically an extra jab of an mRNA-based vaccine on top of the standard doses – would protect the average person, although data is beginning to trickle in. The effects of not receiving any vaccine are more certain. On the African continent, where only 2% of people have been vaccinated, Covid-19 rates are escalating, with fatality rates higher than the global average. Without vaccines, researchers say, the best tools for slowing the spread of infections are interventions such as closing businesses and schools, which can have devastating economic consequences. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that 95 million people were pushed into extreme poverty during the pandemic last year, and numbers are rising. On 27 July, the organisation reported a widening wealth gap between rich countries and the rest of the world. What’s more, evolutionary biologists say that countries with low vaccination coverage are ripe for the emergence of further dangerous variants of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. “Right now, our destiny relies on distributing vaccines so that continued transmission doesn’t occur,” says Boston University in Massachusetts Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research director Nahid Bhadelia. “We don’t want to be chasing our tail in terms of new variants.” Contemplating boosters Israel is not alone in considering boosters for older people. Spurred partly by data suggesting that antibody levels wane over time, the UK has drawn up plans – but not given final approval – for a booster programme to begin in September for older people, front-line health workers, and others at high risk of Covid-19. In early July, the US government decided against boosters for the time being, but said it was prepared to roll them out when science demonstrated a need. Last week, the US purchased another 200 million mRNA vaccines made by pharmaceutical firm Pfizer based in New York City, and biotechnology firm BioNTech based in Mainz, Germany, that might be used for booster shots if studies show they are necessary. The US and other nations are hesitating because current Covid-19 vaccines still protect people, despite uncertainty about how long their effects will last. This week, a not-yet peer-reviewed report from Pfizer found that its vaccine’s efficacy rate against symptomatic Covid-19 fell from 96% for the two months after the usual two doses to 84% six months later. But its efficacy against severe disease remained high at 97%. Decisions on boosters might also be influenced by the rise of the Delta variant in many parts of the world, and the possibility that vaccinated people could transmit it to others if they become infected. In theory, further reducing the risk of infection for vaccinated people diminishes the possibility of Delta’s spread. The variant was first reported in India in late 2020, but remained relatively rare until March, when a surge occurred. Few people in the country had been vaccinated at the time, allowing the virus to spread in India and beyond. A similar scenario might play out again in an area with low vaccination coverage and a lot of Covid-19. A new variant could arise that is more transmissible or deadlier than Delta, or that allows the virus to escape – at least to some extent – immunity gained from vaccination or a previous infection, said University of Oxford Big Data Institute evolutionary biologist Katrina Lythgoe. “Making predictions is really hard,” she added, but it’s safe to say that in places with more infections, there are more viruses replicating, and therefore more opportunities for variants to evolve. The sting of inequity If there were enough vaccines for every adult in the world, third doses for those in rich countries wouldn’t appeal to so many researchers. But disparities are growing. A July report from KFF, a health-policy organisation based in San Francisco, California, finds that low-income countries won’t achieve substantial levels of protection until at least 2023, at current vaccination rates. Almost all of the roughly 3.2 billion mRNA vaccine doses expected this year from manufacturers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been purchased by the US and Europe, according to the London-based analytics company Airfinity. Although some of those will be donated to countries in need, the KFF report suggests that they will be insufficient. The pace of vaccination in low-income countries needs to increase 19-fold to inoculate 40% of those nations’ populations by the end of the year, the report said. This modest vaccination target of 40% is endorsed by the WHO, the World Bank, and the IMF as a threshold that would significantly reduce deaths and allow economies to begin recovery. But because it looks increasingly out of reach, the IMF has revised its economic forecasts for 2021, downgrading projections for developing and emerging economies. It warns that highly infectious variants could derail worldwide economic recovery and wipe $ 4.5 trillion from the global gross domestic product by 2025. Countries are justifying booster shots on the basis that their duty is to protect their residents first. Officials in Israel, where 62% of the population has been fully vaccinated, are concerned about a rise in Covid-19 infections over the past month. Weizmann Institute of Science computer scientist and Israeli government Covid-19 consultant Eran Segal said that some of the rise could be due to vaccines’ protection wearing off, although other factors, such as people spending more time together unmasked, can influence infection rates. On using boosters in Israel rather than providing them to unvaccinated people elsewhere, Segal says that the country’s programme will require just over one million doses. “It’s negligible,” he said: “And the world will learn from this experience.” For many, this reasoning does not assuage the sting of vaccine inequity. Organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders) in Geneva, Switzerland, and advocacy group Public Citizen in Washington DC have reacted to news of boosters with outrage. “Instead of solving the problem by vaccinating the world and cutting off new variants, rich countries seem prepared to fork over more money for boosters, and live in a state of endless fear,” said AccessIBSA project – a non-profit in Bengaluru, India – public-health activist Achal Prabhala. For MSF Access Campaign South Asia regional head Leena Menghaney, this debate is personal. She was caught in a stampede for a limited supply of vaccines offered earlier this month in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most densely populated state, where the desperation was palpable. “We have always known that we were second-class citizens,” she said. “But you really feel it at that moment.” (The writer holds a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard and is an award-winning science writer who covers the entanglements of evolution, medicine, science policy and of the people behind research. This article was first published in Nature.com)  

Kapruka

Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!

Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!


More News..